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A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in terms of "a filmmaking practice, a cinematic tradition, and mode of audience reception hat remainsa practice without clear boundaries". Early documentary films, originally called "
actuality film The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or co ...
s", lasted one minute or less. Over time, documentaries have evolved to become longer in length, and to include more categories. Some examples are educational, observational and docufiction. Documentaries are very informative, and are often used within schools as a resource to teach various principles. Documentary filmmakers have a responsibility to be truthful to their vision of the world without intentionally misrepresenting a topic. Social-media platforms (such as
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
) have provided an avenue for the growth of the documentary- film genre. These platforms have increased the distribution area and ease-of-accessibility.


Definition

Polish writer and filmmaker Bolesław Matuszewski was among those who identified the mode of documentary film. He wrote two of the earliest texts on cinema ''Une nouvelle source de l'histoire'' (eng. A New Source of History) and ''La photographie animée'' (eng. Animated photography). Both were published in 1898 in French and among the early written works to consider the historical and documentary value of the film. Matuszewski is also among the first filmmakers to propose the creation of a Film Archive to collect and keep safe visual materials. The word "documentary" was coined by Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson in his review of Robert Flaherty's film '' Moana'' (1926), published in the '' New York Sun'' on 8 February 1926, written by "The Moviegoer" (a pen name for Grierson).
Ann Curthoys Ann Curthoys, (born 5 September 1945) is an Australian historian and academic. Early life and education Curthoys was born in Sydney, New South Wales, on 5 September 1945, and completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney. In 1 ...
, Marilyn Lakebr>Connected worlds: history in transnational perspective, Volume 2004
p.151. Australian National University Press
Grierson's principles of documentary were that cinema's potential for observing life could be exploited in a new art form; that the "original" actor and "original" scene are better guides than their fiction counterparts to interpreting the modern world; and that materials "thus taken from the raw" can be more real than the acted article. In this regard, Grierson's definition of documentary as "creative treatment of actuality" has gained some acceptance, with this position at variance with Soviet film-maker Dziga Vertov's provocation to present "life as it is" (that is, life filmed surreptitiously) and "life caught unawares" (life provoked or surprised by the camera). The American film critic Pare Lorentz defines a documentary film as "a factual film which is dramatic." Others further state that a documentary stands out from the other types of non-fiction films for providing an opinion, and a specific message, along with the facts it presents. Scholar Betsy McLane asserted that documentaries are for filmmakers to convey their views about historical events, people, and places which they find significant. Therefore, the advantage of documentaries lies in introducing new perspectives which may not be prevalent in traditional medias such as written publications and school curriculum. Documentary practice is the complex process of creating documentary projects. It refers to what people do with media devices, content, form, and production strategies to address the creative, ethical, and conceptual problems and choices that arise as they make documentaries. Documentary filmmaking can be used as a form of journalism, advocacy, or personal expression.


History


Pre-1900

Early film (pre-1900) was dominated by the novelty of showing an event. They were single-shot moments captured on film: a train entering a station, a boat docking, or factory workers leaving work. These short films were called "actuality" films; the term "documentary" was not coined until 1926. Many of the first films, such as those made by
Auguste and Louis Lumière The Lumière brothers (, ; ), Auguste Lumière, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas Lumière (19 October 1862 – 10 April 1954) and Louis Lumière, Louis Jean Lumière (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1948), were French manufacturers of photography equipment ...
, were a minute or less in length, due to technological limitations (example on YouTube). Films showing many people (for example, leaving a factory) were often made for commercial reasons: the people being filmed were eager to see, for payment, the film showing them. One notable film clocked in at over an hour and a half, '' The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight''. Using pioneering film-looping technology,
Enoch J. Rector Enoch J. Rector (October 9, 1863 – January 26, 1957) was an American boxing film promoter and early cinema technician. He was a partner in Woodville Latham's Kinetoscope Exhibition Company (later the Lambda Company) during the mid-1890s, w ...
presented the entirety of a famous 1897 prize-fight on cinema screens across the United States. In May 1896, Bolesław Matuszewski recorded on film a few surgical operations in
Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officiall ...
and
Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
hospitals. In 1898, French surgeon Eugène-Louis Doyen invited Bolesław Matuszewski and Clément Maurice and proposed them to recorded his surgical operations. They started in Paris a series of surgical films sometime before July 1898. Until 1906, the year of his last film, Doyen recorded more than 60 operations. Doyen said that his first films taught him how to correct professional errors he had been unaware of. For scientific purposes, after 1906, Doyen combined 15 of his films into three compilations, two of which survive, the six-film series ''Extirpation des tumeurs encapsulées'' (1906), and the four-film ''Les Opérations sur la cavité crânienne'' (1911). These and five other of Doyen's films survive. Between July 1898 and 1901, the Romanian professor Gheorghe Marinescu made several science films in his neurology clinic in
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north o ...
: Mircea Dumitrescu, ''O privire critică asupra filmului românesc'', Brașov, 2005, '' Walking Troubles of Organic Hemiplegy'' (1898), ''The Walking Troubles of Organic Paraplegies'' (1899), ''A Case of Hysteric Hemiplegy Healed Through Hypnosis'' (1899), ''The Walking Troubles of Progressive Locomotion Ataxy'' (1900), and ''Illnesses of the Muscles'' (1901). All these short films have been preserved. The professor called his works "studies with the help of the cinematograph," and published the results, along with several consecutive frames, in issues of ''La Semaine Médicale'' magazine from Paris, between 1899 and 1902.Rîpeanu, Bujor T. ''Filmul documentar 1897–1948'', Bucharest, 2008, In 1924, Auguste Lumiere recognized the merits of Marinescu's science films: "I've seen your scientific reports about the usage of the cinematograph in studies of nervous illnesses, when I was still receiving ''La Semaine Médicale'', but back then I had other concerns, which left me no spare time to begin biological studies. I must say I forgot those works and I am thankful to you that you reminded them to me. Unfortunately, not many scientists have followed your way."Ţuţui, Marian,
A short history of the Romanian films
' at the Romanian National Cinematographic Center.
The Works of Gheorghe Marinescu
, 1967 report.
Excerpts of prof. dr. Marinescu's science films


1900–1920

Travelogue films were very popular in the early part of the 20th century. They were often referred to by distributors as "scenics." Scenics were among the most popular sort of films at the time. An important early film to move beyond the concept of the scenic was ''
In the Land of the Head Hunters ''In the Land of the Head Hunters'' (also called ''In the Land of the War Canoes'') is a 1914 silent film fictionalizing the world of the Kwakwaka'wakw peoples of the Queen Charlotte Strait region of the Central Coast of British Columbia, Can ...
'' (1914), which embraced
primitivism Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate a "primitive" experience. It is also defined as a philosophical doctrine that considers "primitive" peoples as nobler than civilized peoples and was an o ...
and exoticism in a staged story presented as truthful re-enactments of the life of Native Americans. Contemplation is a separate area. Pathé is the best-known global manufacturer of such films of the early 20th century. A vivid example is ''
Moscow Clad in Snow ''Moscow Clad in Snow'' is a 1909 short silent documentary film directed by Joseph-Louis Mundwiller about winter in Moscow 1908. Synopsis The film is in four parts. First, the camera pans the Kremlin and Marshal's Bridge. Sleds are park ...
'' (1909). Biographical documentaries appeared during this time, such as the feature '' Eminescu-Veronica-Creangă'' (1914) on the relationship between the writers
Mihai Eminescu Mihai Eminescu (; born Mihail Eminovici; 15 January 1850 – 15 June 1889) was a Romanian Romantic poet from Moldavia, novelist, and journalist, generally regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active ...
, Veronica Micle and
Ion Creangă Ion Creangă (; also known as Nică al lui Ștefan a Petrei, Ion Torcălău and Ioan Ștefănescu; March 1, 1837 – December 31, 1889) was a Moldavian, later Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th-century Romani ...
(all deceased at the time of the production) released by the
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north o ...
chapter of Pathé. Early color motion picture processes such as Kinemacolor—known for the feature '' With Our King and Queen Through India'' (1912)—and Prizmacolor—known for ''Everywhere With Prizma'' (1919) and the five-reel feature ''Bali the Unknown'' (1921)—used travelogues to promote the new color processes. In contrast, Technicolor concentrated primarily on getting their process adopted by Hollywood studios for fictional feature films. Also during this period, Frank Hurley's feature documentary film, ''South'' (1919), about the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition was released. The film documented the failed Antarctic expedition led by
Ernest Shackleton Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age o ...
in 1914.


1920s


Romanticism

With Robert J. Flaherty's '' Nanook of the North'' in 1922, documentary film embraced
romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
; Flaherty filmed a number of heavily staged romantic films during this time period, often showing how his subjects would have lived 100 years earlier and not how they lived right then. For instance, in ''Nanook of the North'', Flaherty did not allow his subjects to shoot a walrus with a nearby shotgun, but had them use a harpoon instead. Some of Flaherty's staging, such as building a roofless igloo for interior shots, was done to accommodate the filming technology of the time. Paramount Pictures tried to repeat the success of Flaherty's ''Nanook'' and ''Moana'' with two romanticized documentaries, '' Grass'' (1925) and '' Chang'' (1927), both directed by
Merian Cooper Merian Caldwell Cooper (October 24, 1893 – April 21, 1973) was an American filmmaker and Academy Award winner, as well as a former aviator who served as an officer in the United States Air Force and Polish Air Force. In film, he is credited a ...
and
Ernest Schoedsack Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack (June 8, 1893 – December 23, 1979) was an American motion picture cinematographer, producer, and director. Schoedsack worked as a cameraman in World War I, where he served in the Signal Corps. At the conclusion o ...
.


City-symphony

The city-symphony sub film genre were avant-garde films during the 1920s and 1930s. These films were particularly influenced by modern art; namely Cubism, Constructivism, and
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passa ...
. According to art historian and author Scott Macdonald, city-symphony films can be described as, "An intersection between documentary and avant-garde film: an ''avant-doc''"; However, A.L. Rees suggests to see them as avant-garde films. Early titles produced within this genre include: '' Manhatta'' (New York; dir.
Paul Strand Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century ...
, 1921); '' Rien que les heures/Nothing But The Hours'' (
France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
; dir. Alberto Cavalcanti, 1926); ''Twenty Four Dollar Island'' (dir. Robert J. Flaherty, 1927); '' Études sur Paris'' (dir. André Sauvage, 1928); '' The Bridge'' (1928) and '' Rain'' (1929), both by Joris Ivens; '' São Paulo, Sinfonia da Metrópole'' (dir.
Adalberto Kemeny Alberto is the Romance version of the Latinized form (''Albertus'') of Germanic ''Adalbert''. It is used in Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. It derives from the Old German '' Athala'' (meaning noble) and ''Berth'' (meaning bright). Notable people ...
, 1929), '' Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis'' (dir. Walter Ruttmann, 1927); '' Man with a Movie Camera'' (dir. Dziga Vertov, 1929) and ''
Douro, Faina Fluvial ''Douro, Faina Fluvial'' (Labor on the Douro River) is a 1931 Portuguese documentary short film. It was the first film directed by Manoel de Oliveira and is a portrait of his hometown of Porto and the labor and industry that takes place along t ...
'' (dir. Manoel de Oliveira, 1931). A city-symphony film, as the name suggests, is most often based around a major metropolitan city area and seeks to capture the life, events and activities of the city. It can be abstract cinematography (Walter Ruttman's ''Berlin'') or may use
Soviet montage theory Soviet montage theory is an approach to understanding and creating cinema that relies heavily upon editing ('' montage'' is French for "assembly" or "editing"). It is the principal contribution of Soviet film theorists to global cinema, and bro ...
(Dziga Vertov's, ''Man with a Movie Camera''); yet, most importantly, a city-symphony film is a form of
cinepoetry Cinepoetry (or cinepoem) originally meant arts of motion pictures with poetic sense but came to mean cinematic poetry (or poem). Examples in former meaning *Man Ray's films * Matt Robinson's films *Stark Electric Jesus (India) Examples in latt ...
being shot and edited in the style of a " symphony". The continental tradition (''See:''
Realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: * Classical Realism *Literary realism, a mov ...
) focused on humans within human-made environments, and included the so-called "''city-symphony''" films such as Walter Ruttmann's, ''Berlin, Symphony of a City'' (of which Grierson noted in an article that ''Berlin,'' represented what a documentary should not be); Alberto Cavalcanti's, ''Rien que les heures;'' and Dziga Vertov's ''Man with a Movie Camera''. These films tend to feature people as products of their environment, and lean towards the avant-garde.


''Kino-Pravda''

Dziga Vertov was central to the Soviet '' Kino-Pravda'' (literally, "cinematic truth") newsreel series of the 1920s. Vertov believed the camera—with its varied lenses, shot-counter shot editing, time-lapse, ability to slow motion, stop motion and fast-motion—could render reality more accurately than the human eye, and made a film philosophy out of it.


Newsreel tradition

The newsreel tradition is important in documentary film; newsreels were also sometimes staged but were usually re-enactments of events that had already happened, not attempts to steer events as they were in the process of happening. For instance, much of the battle footage from the early 20th century was staged; the cameramen would usually arrive on site after a major battle and re-enact scenes to film them.


1930s–1940s

The propagandist tradition consists of films made with the explicit purpose of persuading an audience of a point. One of the most celebrated and controversial propaganda films is
Leni Riefenstahl Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, photographer and actress known for her role in producing Nazi propaganda. A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl also became in ...
's film ''
Triumph of the Will ''Triumph of the Will'' (german: Triumph des Willens) is a 1935 German Nazi propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl. Adolf Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; hi ...
'' (1935), which chronicled the 1934 Nazi Party Congress and was commissioned by
Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and the ...
. Leftist filmmakers Joris Ivens and Henri Storck directed '' Borinage'' (1931) about the Belgian coal mining region. Luis Buñuel directed a " surrealist" documentary '' Las Hurdes'' (1933). Pare Lorentz's '' The Plow That Broke the Plains'' (1936) and '' The River'' (1938) and
Willard Van Dyke Willard Van Dyke (December 5, 1906 – January 23, 1986) was an American filmmaker, photographer, arts administrator, teacher, and former director of the film department at the Museum of Modern Art.http://www.moma.org/docs/press_archives/6278/rel ...
's '' The City'' (1939) are notable New Deal productions, each presenting complex combinations of social and ecological awareness, government propaganda, and leftist viewpoints. Frank Capra's '' Why We Fight'' (1942–1944) series was a newsreel series in the United States, commissioned by the government to convince the U.S. public that it was time to go to war.
Constance Bennett Constance Campbell Bennett (October 22, 1904 – July 24, 1965) was an American stage, film, radio, and television actress and producer. She was a major Hollywood star during the 1920s and 1930s; during the early 1930s, she was the highest-paid ...
and her husband
Henri de la Falaise Henry de La Falaise, Marquis de La Coudraye (born James Henry Le Bailly de La Falaise, February 11, 1898 – April 10, 1972), was a French nobleman, translator, film director, film producer, sometime actor, and war hero who was best known for his ...
produced two feature-length documentaries, '' Legong: Dance of the Virgins'' (1935) filmed in Bali, and ''Kilou the Killer Tiger'' (1936) filmed in
Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...
. In Canada, the Film Board, set up by John Grierson, was created for the same propaganda reasons. It also created newsreels that were seen by their national governments as legitimate counter-propaganda to the psychological warfare of
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
Germany (orchestrated by Joseph Goebbels). In Britain, a number of different filmmakers came together under John Grierson. They became known as the Documentary Film Movement. Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Harry Watt,
Basil Wright Basil Wright (12 June 1907, Sutton, Surrey – 14 October 1987, Frieth, Buckinghamshire, England) was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. Biography After leaving Sherborne School, a well known independent schoo ...
, and Humphrey Jennings amongst others succeeded in blending propaganda, information, and education with a more poetic aesthetic approach to documentary. Examples of their work include ''Drifters'' ( John Grierson), ''
Song of Ceylon ''The Song of Ceylon'' is a 1934 British documentary film directed by Basil Wright and produced by John Grierson for the Ceylon Tea Propaganda Board. The film was shot on location in Ceylon ( Sri Lanka) at the start of 1934 and completed at the ...
'' (
Basil Wright Basil Wright (12 June 1907, Sutton, Surrey – 14 October 1987, Frieth, Buckinghamshire, England) was a documentary filmmaker, film historian, film critic and teacher. Biography After leaving Sherborne School, a well known independent schoo ...
), '' Fires Were Started'', and ''
A Diary for Timothy ''A Diary for Timothy'' (1945) is a British documentary film directed by Humphrey Jennings. It was produced by Basil Wright for the Crown Film Unit. The narration was written by the British author E. M. Forster (spoken by Michael Redgrave) and ...
'' ( Humphrey Jennings). Their work involved poets such as W. H. Auden, composers such as
Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976, aged 63) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, other ...
, and writers such as J. B. Priestley. Among the best known films of the movement are '' Night Mail'' and '' Coal Face''. Film ''Calling mr. Smith'' (1943) was anti-nazi color film created by
Stefan Themerson Stefan Themerson (25 January 1910 – 6 September 1988) was a Polish writer of children's literature, poet and inventor of Semantic Poetry, novelist, script writer filmmaker, composer and philosopher. He wrote in at least three languages. Wit ...
and being both documentary and avant-garde film against war. It was one of the first anti-nazi films in history.


1950s–1970s


Cinéma-vérité

Cinéma vérité (or the closely related direct cinema) was dependent on some technical advances to exist: light, quiet and reliable cameras, and portable sync sound. Cinéma vérité and similar documentary traditions can thus be seen, in a broader perspective, as a reaction against studio-based film production constraints. Shooting on location, with smaller crews, would also happen in the French New Wave, the filmmakers taking advantage of advances in technology allowing smaller, handheld cameras and synchronized sound to film events on location as they unfolded. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, there are important differences between cinéma vérité ( Jean Rouch) and the North American " direct cinema" (or more accurately " cinéma direct"), pioneered by, among others, Canadians Allan King,
Michel Brault Michel Brault, OQ (25 June 1928 – 21 September 2013) was a Canadian cinematographer, cameraman, film director, screenwriter, and film producer. He was a leading figure of Direct Cinema, characteristic of the French branch of the National ...
, and Pierre Perrault, and Americans Robert Drew,
Richard Leacock Richard Leacock (18 July 192123 March 2011)
The Telegraph (Lon ...
, Frederick Wiseman and
Albert and David Maysles Albert Maysles (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David Maysles (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987; ) were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films i ...
. The directors of the movement take different viewpoints on their degree of involvement with their subjects. Kopple and Pennebaker, for instance, choose non-involvement (or at least no overt involvement), and Perrault, Rouch, Koenig, and Kroitor favor direct involvement or even provocation when they deem it necessary. The films ''
Chronicle of a Summer ''Chronicle of a Summer'' (French original title: ''Chronique d'un été'') is a 1961 French documentary film shot during the summer of 1960 by sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and filmmaker Jean Rouch, with the technical and aestheti ...
'' ( Jean Rouch), ''
Dont Look Back '' Look Back'' is a 1967 American documentary film directed by D. A. Pennebaker that covers Bob Dylan's 1965 concert tour in England. In 1998, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library ...
'' (
D. A. Pennebaker Donn Alan Pennebaker (; July 15, 1925 – August 1, 2019) was an American documentary filmmaker and one of the pioneers of direct cinema. Performing arts and politics were his primary subjects. In 2013, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sci ...
), '' Grey Gardens'' (
Albert and David Maysles Albert Maysles (November 26, 1926 – March 5, 2015) and his brother David Maysles (January 10, 1931 – January 3, 1987; ) were an American documentary filmmaking team known for their work in the Direct Cinema style. Their best-known films i ...
), '' Titicut Follies'' ( Frederick Wiseman), '' Primary'' and '' Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment'' (both produced by Robert Drew), '' Harlan County, USA'' (directed by Barbara Kopple), '' Lonely Boy'' (
Wolf Koenig Wolf Koenig (October 17, 1927 – June 26, 2014) was a Canadian film director, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada. Early life Born in Dresden, Germany, Koenig emigrated to Ca ...
and
Roman Kroitor Roman Kroitor (December 12, 1926 – September 17, 2012) was a Canadian filmmaker who was known as an early practitioner of ''cinéma vérité'', as co-founder of IMAX, and as creator of the Sandde hand-drawn stereoscopic animation system. ...
) are all frequently deemed cinéma vérité films. The fundamentals of the style include following a person during a crisis with a moving, often handheld, camera to capture more personal reactions. There are no sit-down interviews, and the shooting ratio (the amount of film shot to the finished product) is very high, often reaching 80 to one. From there, editors find and sculpt the work into a film. The editors of the movement—such as
Werner Nold Werner Nold (born December 19, 1933, in Samedan, Switzerland) is a Quebec film editor. In 1984, he was named a Member of the Order of Canada, and 2012, he was named as a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.http://www.ordre-national.gouv.qc.c ...
, Charlotte Zwerin, Muffie Myers, Susan Froemke, and Ellen Hovde—are often overlooked, but their input to the films was so vital that they were often given co-director credits. Famous cinéma vérité/direct cinema films include '' Les Raquetteurs'', ''Showman'', '' Salesman'', ''Near Death'', and ''The Children Were Watching''.


Political weapons

In the 1960s and 1970s, documentary film was often conceived as a political weapon against neocolonialism and
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
in general, especially in Latin America, but also in a changing
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirte ...
society. ''La Hora de los hornos'' (''
The Hour of the Furnaces ''The Hour of the Furnaces'' ( es, La hora de los hornos) is a 1968 Argentine film directed by Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas. 'The paradigm of revolutionary activist cinema', it addresses the politics of the 'Third worldist' films and La ...
'', from 1968), directed by
Octavio Getino Octavio Getino (August 6, 1935 in León, Spain – October 1, 2012) was an Argentine film director and writer who is best known for co-founding, along with Fernando Solanas, the '' Grupo Cine Liberación'' and the school of Third Cinema. Getino ...
and Arnold Vincent Kudales Sr., influenced a whole generation of filmmakers. Among the many political documentaries produced in the early 1970s was "Chile: A Special Report," public television's first in-depth expository look of the September 1973 overthrow of the Salvador Allende government in Chile by military leaders under Augusto Pinochet, produced by documentarians Ari Martinez and José Garcia. A June 2020 article in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' reviewed the political documentary ''And She Could Be Next'', directed by Grace Lee and Marjan Safinia. The ''Times'' described the documentary not only as focusing on women in politics, but more specifically on women of color, their communities, and the significant changes they have wrought upon America.


Modern documentaries

Box office analysts have noted that this film genre has become increasingly successful in theatrical release with films such as '' Fahrenheit 9/11'', '' Super Size Me'', ''
Food, Inc. ''Food, Inc.'' is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Robert Kenner
'', ''
Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
'', '' March of the Penguins'', and '' An Inconvenient Truth'' among the most prominent examples. Compared to dramatic narrative films, documentaries typically have far lower budgets which makes them attractive to film companies because even a limited theatrical release can be highly profitable. The nature of documentary films has expanded in the past 20 years from the cinéma vérité style introduced in the 1960s in which the use of portable camera and sound equipment allowed an intimate relationship between filmmaker and subject. The line blurs between documentary and narrative and some works are very personal, such as Marlon Riggs's ''Tongues Untied'' (1989) and ''Black Is...Black Ain't'' (1995), which mix expressive, poetic, and rhetorical elements and stresses subjectivities rather than historical materials. Historical documentaries, such as the landmark 14-hour '' Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years'' (1986—Part 1 and 1989—Part 2) by Henry Hampton, '' 4 Little Girls'' (1997) by Spike Lee, and '' The Civil War'' by Ken Burns, UNESCO awarded independent film on slavery '' 500 Years Later'', expressed not only a distinctive voice but also a perspective and point of views. Some films such as '' The Thin Blue Line'' by
Errol Morris Errol Mark Morris (born February 5, 1948) is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of its subjects. In 2003, his documentary film '' The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNama ...
incorporated stylized re-enactments, and Michael Moore's '' Roger & Me'' placed far more interpretive control with the director. The commercial success of these documentaries may derive from this narrative shift in the documentary form, leading some critics to question whether such films can truly be called documentaries; critics sometimes refer to these works as "
mondo films Mondo films are a subgenre of exploitation films and documentary films. Many mondo films are made in a way to resemble a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations. Common traits of mondo films include p ...
" or "docu-ganda." However, directorial manipulation of documentary subjects has been noted since the work of Flaherty, and may be endemic to the form due to problematic ontological foundations. Documentary filmmakers are increasingly using social impact campaigns with their films. Social impact campaigns seek to leverage media projects by converting public awareness of social issues and causes into engagement and action, largely by offering the audience a way to get involved. Examples of such documentaries include '' Kony 2012'', ''
Salam Neighbor ''Salam Neighbor'' is a 2015 documentary film by the production companies Living on One Dollar and 1001 MEDIA. The title means "hello" neighbor. The title has a dual meaning as the Arabic word "salam" also means "peace." The film documents the ex ...
, Gasland'', '' Living on One Dollar'', and ''
Girl Rising Girl Rising is a global movement for girls' education, based primarily around a 2013 feature film, ''Girl Rising''. Film The movie ''Girl Rising'' was produced by Kayce Freed, Tom Yellin and Holly Gordon at The Documentary Group in partnership ...
''. Although documentaries are financially more viable with the increasing popularity of the genre and the advent of the DVD, funding for documentary film production remains elusive. Within the past decade, the largest exhibition opportunities have emerged from within the broadcast market, making filmmakers beholden to the tastes and influences of the broadcasters who have become their largest funding source. Modern documentaries have some overlap with television forms, with the development of "reality television" that occasionally verges on the documentary but more often veers to the fictional or staged. The "making-of" documentary shows how a movie or a computer game was produced. Usually made for promotional purposes, it is closer to an advertisement than a classic documentary. Modern lightweight digital video cameras and computer-based editing have greatly aided documentary makers, as has the dramatic drop in equipment prices. The first film to take full advantage of this change was Martin Kunert and
Eric Manes Eric David Manes is a feature film and television writer and producer, owner of Swiss chocolate company Coco Suisse with his wife Marianne Manes, and a State of California Registered Investment Advisor. Biography Manes produced the documentary ...
' ''
Voices of Iraq ''Voices of Iraq'' is a 2004 documentary film about Iraq, created by distributing cameras to the subjects of a film, thus enabling subjects to film themselves. To preserve its innovative filmmaking, ''Voices of Iraq'' was added to the permanent c ...
'', where 150 DV cameras were sent to Iraq during the war and passed out to Iraqis to record themselves.


Documentaries without words

Films in the documentary form without words have been made. '' Listen to Britain'', directed by Humphrey Jennings and Stuart McAllister in 1942, is a wordless meditation on wartime Britain. From 1982, the Qatsi trilogy and the similar ''
Baraka Baraka or Barakah may refer to: * Berakhah or Baraka, in Judaism, a blessing usually recited during a ceremony * Barakah or Baraka, in Islam, the beneficent force from God that flows through the physical and spiritual spheres * Baraka, full ''ḥa ...
'' could be described as visual tone poems, with music related to the images, but no spoken content. '' Koyaanisqatsi'' (part of the Qatsi trilogy) consists primarily of slow motion and time-lapse photography of cities and many natural landscapes across the United States. ''Baraka'' tries to capture the great pulse of humanity as it flocks and swarms in daily activity and religious ceremonies. '' Bodysong'' was made in 2003 and won a British Independent Film Award for "Best British Documentary." The 2004 film ''
Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...
'' shows animal and plant life in states of expansion, decay, sex, and death, with some, but little, narration.


Narration styles

; Voice-over narrator The traditional style for narration is to have a dedicated narrator read a script which is dubbed onto the audio track. The narrator never appears on camera and may not necessarily have knowledge of the subject matter or involvement in the writing of the script. ; Silent narration This style of narration uses title screens to visually narrate the documentary. The screens are held for about 5–10 seconds to allow adequate time for the viewer to read them. They are similar to the ones shown at the end of movies based on true stories, but they are shown throughout, typically between scenes. ; Hosted narrator In this style, there is a host who appears on camera, conducts interviews, and who also does voice-overs.


Other forms


Hybrid documentary

The release of '' The Act of Killing'' (2012) directed by Joshua Oppenheimer has introduced possibilities for emerging forms of the hybrid documentary. Traditional documentary filmmaking typically removes signs of fictionalization to distinguish itself from fictional film genres. Audiences have recently become more distrustful of the media's traditional fact production, making them more receptive to experimental ways of telling facts. The hybrid documentary implements truth games to challenge traditional fact production. Although it is fact-based, the hybrid documentary is not explicit about what should be understood, creating an open dialogue between subject and audience. Clio Barnard's ''The Arbor'' (2010), Joshua Oppenheimer's '' The Act of Killing'' (2012),
Mads Brügger Mads Brügger (; born 24 June 1972) is a Danish filmmaker and TV host. Career Film Brügger's first two projects, the documentary series '' Danes for Bush'' and the feature '' The Red Chapel'', filmed in the United States and North Korea, resp ...
's ''The Ambassador'', and Alma Har'el's ''Bombay Beach'' (2011) are a few notable examples.


Docufiction

Docufiction is a hybrid genre from two basic ones, fiction film and documentary, practiced since the first documentary films were made.


Fake-fiction

Fake-fiction is a genre which deliberately presents real, unscripted events in the form of a fiction film, making them appear as staged. The concept was introduced by Pierre Bismuth to describe his 2016 film ''Where is Rocky II?''


DVD documentary

A DVD documentary is a documentary film of indeterminate length that has been produced with the sole intent of releasing it for direct sale to the public on DVD, as different from a documentary being made and released first on television or on a cinema screen (a.k.a. theatrical release) and subsequently on DVD for public consumption. This form of documentary release is becoming more popular and accepted as costs and difficulty with finding TV or theatrical release slots increases. It is also commonly used for more "specialist" documentaries, which might not have general interest to a wider TV audience. Examples are military, cultural arts, transport, sports, etc.


Compilation films

Compilation films were pioneered in 1927 by Esfir Schub with ''The Fall of the Romanov Dynasty''. More recent examples include ''
Point of Order! ''Point of Order!'' is a 1964 American documentary film by Emile de Antonio, about the Senate Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954. Background The Army–McCarthy hearings came about when the Army accused Senator Joseph McCarthy of improperly pressur ...
'' (1964), directed by Emile de Antonio about the McCarthy hearings. Similarly, ''
The Last Cigarette ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' combines the testimony of various tobacco company executives before the U.S. Congress with archival propaganda extolling the virtues of smoking. Poetic documentaries, which first appeared in the 1920s, were a sort of reaction against both the content and the rapidly crystallizing grammar of the early fiction film. The poetic mode moved away from continuity editing and instead organized images of the material world by means of associations and patterns, both in terms of time and space. Well-rounded characters—"lifelike people"—were absent; instead, people appeared in these films as entities, just like any other, that are found in the material world. The films were fragmentary, impressionistic, lyrical. Their disruption of the coherence of time and space—a coherence favored by the fiction films of the day—can also be seen as an element of the modernist counter-model of cinematic narrative. The "real world"—Nichols calls it the "historical world"—was broken up into fragments and aesthetically reconstituted using film form. Examples of this style include Joris Ivens' ''Rain'' (1928), which records a passing summer shower over Amsterdam; László Moholy-Nagy's ''Play of Light: Black, White, Grey (1930)'', in which he films one of his own kinetic sculptures, emphasizing not the sculpture itself but the play of light around it; Oskar Fischinger's abstract animated films; Francis Thompson's '' N.Y., N.Y.'' (1957), a city symphony film; and
Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée'' (1962), '' A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977) and ''Sans Soleil ...
's ''
Sans Soleil ''Sans Soleil'' (; "Sunless") is a 1983 French documentary film directed by Chris Marker. It is a meditation on the nature of human memory, showing the inability to recall the context and nuances of memory, and how, as a result, the perception of ...
'' (1982). Expository documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voiceover or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view. These films are rhetorical, and try to persuade the viewer. (They may use a rich and sonorous male voice.) The (voice-of-God) commentary often sounds "objective" and omniscient. Images are often not paramount; they exist to advance the argument. The rhetoric insistently presses upon us to read the images in a certain fashion. Historical documentaries in this mode deliver an unproblematic and "objective" account and interpretation of past events. Examples: TV shows and films like ''
Biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or c ...
'', '' America's Most Wanted'', many science and nature documentaries, Ken Burns' '' The Civil War'' (1990), Robert Hughes' ''
The Shock of the New ''The Shock of the New'' is an eight-part documentary television series about the development of modern art written and presented in 1980 by Robert Hughes for the BBC, in association with Time-Life Films. It was produced by Lorna Pegram, who ...
'' (1980), John Berger's '' Ways Of Seeing'' (1974), Frank Capra's wartime '' Why We Fight'' series, and Pare Lorentz's '' The Plow That Broke The Plains'' (1936).


Observational

Observational documentaries attempt to spontaneously observe their subjects with minimal intervention. Filmmakers who worked in this subgenre often saw the poetic mode as too abstract and the expository mode as too didactic. The first observational docs date back to the 1960s; the technological developments which made them possible include mobile lightweight cameras and portable sound recording equipment for synchronized sound. Often, this mode of film eschewed voice-over commentary, post-synchronized dialogue and music, or re-enactments. The films aimed for immediacy, intimacy, and revelation of individual human character in ordinary life situations.


Types

Participatory documentaries believe that it is impossible for the act of filmmaking to not influence or alter the events being filmed. What these films do is emulate the approach of the anthropologist: participant-observation. Not only is the filmmaker part of the film, we also get a sense of how situations in the film are affected or altered by their presence. Nichols: "The filmmaker steps out from behind the cloak of voice-over commentary, steps away from poetic meditation, steps down from a fly-on-the-wall perch, and becomes a social actor (almost) like any other. (Almost like any other because the filmmaker retains the camera, and with it, a certain degree of potential power and control over events.)" The encounter between filmmaker and subject becomes a critical element of the film. Rouch and Morin named the approach cinéma vérité, translating Dziga Vertov's kinopravda into French; the "truth" refers to the truth of the encounter rather than some absolute truth. Reflexive documentaries do not see themselves as a transparent window on the world; instead, they draw attention to their own constructedness, and the fact that they are representations. How does the world get represented by documentary films? This question is central to this subgenre of films. They prompt us to "question the authenticity of documentary in general." It is the most self-conscious of all the modes, and is highly skeptical of "realism". It may use Brechtian alienation strategies to jar us, in order to "defamiliarize" what we are seeing and how we are seeing it. Performative documentaries stress subjective experience and emotional response to the world. They are strongly personal, unconventional, perhaps poetic and/or experimental, and might include hypothetical enactments of events designed to make us experience what it might be like for us to possess a certain specific perspective on the world that is not our own, e.g. that of black, gay men in Marlon Riggs's ''Tongues Untied'' (1989) or Jenny Livingston's ''Paris Is Burning'' (1991). This subgenre might also lend itself to certain groups (e.g. women, ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, etc.) to "speak about themselves". Often, a battery of techniques, many borrowed from fiction or avant-garde films, are used. Performative docs often link up personal accounts or experiences with larger political or historical realities.


Educational films

Documentaries are shown in schools around the world in order to educate students. Used to introduce various topics to children, they are often used with a school lesson or shown many times to reinforce an idea.


Translation

There are several challenges associated with translation of documentaries. The main two are working conditions and problems with terminology.


Working conditions

Documentary translators very often have to meet tight deadlines. Normally, the translator has between five and seven days to hand over the translation of a 90-minute programme. Dubbing studios typically give translators a week to translate a documentary, but in order to earn a good salary, translators have to deliver their translations in a much shorter period, usually when the studio decides to deliver the final programme to the client sooner or when the broadcasting channel sets a tight deadline, e.g. on documentaries discussing the latest news. Another problem is the lack of postproduction script or the poor quality of the transcription. A correct transcription is essential for a translator to do their work properly, however many times the script is not even given to the translator, which is a major impediment since documentaries are characterised by "the abundance of terminological units and very specific proper names".Matamala, A. (2009). Main Challenges in the Translation of Documentaries. In J. Cintas (Ed.), New Trends in Audiovisual Translation (pp. 109–120). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, p. 111 When the script is given to the translator, it is usually poorly transcribed or outright incorrect making the translation unnecessarily difficult and demanding because all of the proper names and specific terminology have to be correct in a documentary programme in order for it to be a reliable source of information, hence the translator has to check every term on their own. Such mistakes in proper names are for instance: "Jungle Reinhard instead of Django Reinhart, Jorn Asten instead of Jane Austen, and Magnus Axle instead of Aldous Huxley".


Terminology

The process of translation of a documentary programme requires working with very specific, often scientific terminology. Documentary translators are not usually specialists in a given field. Therefore, they are compelled to undertake extensive research whenever asked to make a translation of a specific documentary programme in order to understand it correctly and deliver the final product free of mistakes and inaccuracies. Generally, documentaries contain a large number of specific terms, with which translators have to familiarise themselves on their own, for example:
The documentary ''Beetles, Record Breakers'' makes use of 15 different terms to refer to beetles in less than 30 minutes (longhorn beetle, cellar beetle, stag beetle, burying beetle or gravediggers, sexton beetle, tiger beetle, bloody nose beetle, tortoise beetle, diving beetle, devil's coach horse, weevil, click beetle, malachite beetle, oil beetle, cockchafer), apart from mentioning other animals such as horseshoe bats or meadow brown butterflies.
This poses a real challenge for the translators because they have to render the meaning, i.e. find an equivalent, of a very specific, scientific term in the target language and frequently the narrator uses a more general name instead of a specific term and the translator has to rely on the image presented in the programme to understand which term is being discussed in order to transpose it in the target language accordingly. Additionally, translators of minorised languages often have to face another problem: some terms may not even exist in the target language. In such cases, they have to create new terminology or consult specialists to find proper solutions. Also, sometimes the official nomenclature differs from the terminology used by actual specialists, which leaves the translator to decide between using the official vocabulary that can be found in the dictionary, or rather opting for spontaneous expressions used by real experts in real life situations.Matamala, A. (2009). Main Challenges in the Translation of Documentaries. In J. Cintas (Ed.), New Trends in Audiovisual Translation (pp. 109–120). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters, p. 114–115


See also

*
Actuality film The actuality film is a non-fiction film genre that, like the documentary film, uses footage of real events, places, and things. Unlike the documentaries, actuality films are not structured into a larger argument, picture of the phenomenon or co ...
* Animated documentary * Citizen media * Concert film * Dance film * Docudrama * Documentary mode * Documentary theatre * Ethnofiction * Ethnographic film * Filmmaking *
List of documentary films This is an alphabetical list of documentary films with Wikipedia articles. The earliest documentary listed is ''Fred Ott's Sneeze'' (1894), which is also the first motion picture ever copyrighted in North America. The term ''documentary'' was ...
* List of documentary film festivals *
List of documentary television channels This is a list of documentary channels, including channels that have been affected by " channel drift". It also contains channels accused of a biased point of view. List See also * Channel drift References {{DEFAULTSORT:Documentary tele ...
*
List of directors and producers of documentaries Africa * Sidiki Bakaba * Safi Faye * Sorious Samura ('' Cry Freetown'', '' Return to Freetown'', ''Exodus'', '' Living with Hunger'', '' Living with Refugees'') * Nolan Davis ('' Passing Through: Woni Spotts, The First Black Woman to Travel to Ever ...
* Mockumentary * Mondo film * Nature documentary * Outline of film * Participatory video * Political cinema * Public-access television *
Reality film Reality film or reality movie describes a genre of films that have resulted from reality television, such as ''The Real Cancun'', MTV's film version of '' The Real World'', which was originally titled ''Spring Break: The Reality Movie''. In an art ...
*
Rockumentary A concert film, or concert movie, is a film that showcases a live performance from the perspective of a concert goer, the subject of which is an extended live performance or concert by either a musician or a stand-up comedian. Early history The ...
* Sponsored film * Television documentary * Travel documentary *
Visual anthropology Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science ...
* Web documentary *
Women's cinema Women's cinema primarily describes cinematic works directed (and optionally produced too) by women filmmakers. The works themselves do not have to be stories specifically about women and the target audience can be varied. It is also a variety of ...


Some documentary film awards

* Grierson Awards * Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature *
Joris Ivens Award The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 ...
,
International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 ti ...
(IDFA), (named after Joris Ivens) * Filmmaker Award, Margaret Mead Film Festival * Grand Prize,
Visions du Réel Visions du Réel (Visions of Reality) is an internationally renowned documentary film festival held in April each year in Nyon, Switzerland. Established in 1969 as the Nyon International Documentary Film Festival, the event adopted its current na ...


Sources and bibliography

* Aitken, Ian (ed.). ''Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film''. New York:
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
, 2005. . * Barnouw, Erik. ''Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film'', 2nd rev. ed. New York:
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 1993. . Still a useful introduction. *
Ron Burnett Ron Burnett (born 1947) is an author, professor and the President Emeritus and Research Director for the new Centre for Transdisciplinary Studies at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Education Burnett was born 24 May 1947 in London, Engl ...

"Reflections on the Documentary Cinema"
* Burton, Julianne (ed.). ''The Social Documentary in Latin America''. Pittsburgh, Penn.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. . * Dawson, Jonathan. "Dziga Vertov". * Ellis, Jack C., and Betsy A. McLane. "A New History of Documentary Film." New York: Continuum International, 2005. , . * Goldsmith, David A. ''The Documentary Makers: Interviews with 15 of the Best in the Business''. Hove, East Sussex: RotoVision, 2003. . * * Klotman, Phyllis R. and Culter, Janet K.(eds.). ''Struggles for Representation: African American Documentary Film and Video'' Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999. . * Leach, Jim, and Jeannette Sloniowski (eds.). ''Candid Eyes: Essays on Canadian Documentaries''. Toronto; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 2003. , . * Nichols, Bill. ''Introduction to Documentary'', Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2001. , . * Nichols, Bill. ''Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts in Documentary''. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1991. , . * Nornes, Markus. ''Forest of Pressure: Ogawa Shinsuke and Postwar Japanese Documentary''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. , . * Nornes, Markus. ''Japanese Documentary Film: The Meiji Era through Hiroshima''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003. , . * Rotha, Paul, ''Documentary diary; An Informal History of the British Documentary Film, 1928–1939''. New York: Hill and Wang, 1973. . * Saunders, Dave. ''Direct Cinema: Observational Documentary and the Politics of the Sixties''. London: Wallflower Press, 2007. , . * Saunders, Dave. ''Documentary: The Routledge Film Guidebook''. London: Routledge, 2010. * Tobias, Michael. ''The Search for Reality: The Art of Documentary Filmmaking''. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions 1997. * Walker, Janet, and Diane Waldeman (eds.). ''Feminism and Documentary''. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. , . * Wyver, John. ''The Moving Image: An International History of Film, Television & Radio''. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd. in association with the
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
, 1989. .
Murdoch.edu
, Documentary—reading list


Ethnographic film

* Emilie de Brigard, "The History of Ethnographic Film," in ''Principles of Visual Anthropology'', ed. Paul Hockings. Berlin and New York City : Mouton de Gruyter, 1995, pp. 13–43. * Leslie Devereaux, "Cultures, Disciplines, Cinemas," in ''Fields of Vision. Essays in Film Studies, Visual Anthropology and Photography'', ed. Leslie Devereaux & Roger Hillman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995, pp. 329–339. * Faye Ginsburg, Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin (eds.), ''Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain''. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facul ...
, 2002. . * Anna Grimshaw, ''The Ethnographer's Eye: Ways of Seeing in Modern Anthropology''. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...
, 2001. . *
Karl G. Heider Karl Heider (born January 21, 1935) is an American visual anthropologist. Life and education Heider was born in Northampton, Massachusetts. Heider is the son of psychologists Fritz and Grace (née Moore) Heider. He had two brothers; John and Ste ...
, ''Ethnographic Film''. Austin:
University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Te ...
, 1994. *
Luc de Heusch Luc de Heusch (7 May 1927 – 7 August 2012) was a Belgian filmmaker, writer, and anthropologist, professor emeritus at the Free University of Brussels. His 1967 film '' Thursday We Shall Sing Like Sunday'' was entered into the 5th Moscow Int ...
, ''Cinéma et Sciences Sociales'', Paris:
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international coope ...
, 1962. Published in English as ''The Cinema and Social Science. A Survey of Ethnographic and Sociological Films''. UNESCO, 1962. * Fredric Jameson, ''Signatures of the Visible''. New York & London: Routledge, 1990. * Pierre-L. Jordan, ''Premier Contact-Premier Regard'', Marseille: Musées de Marseille. Images en Manoeuvres Editions, 1992. *
André Leroi-Gourhan André Leroi-Gourhan (; ; 25 August 1911 – 19 February 1986) was a French archaeologist, paleontologist, paleoanthropologist, and anthropologist with an interest in technology and aesthetics and a penchant for philosophical reflection. B ...
, "Cinéma et Sciences Humaines. Le Film Ethnologique Existe-t-il?," ''Revue de Géographie Humaine et d'Ethnologie'' 3 (1948), pp. 42–50. * David MacDougall, ''Transcultural Cinema''. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...
, 1998. . * David MacDougall, "Whose Story Is It?," in ''Ethnographic Film Aesthetics and Narrative Traditions'', ed. Peter I. Crawford and Jan K. Simonsen. Aarhus, Intervention Press, 1992, pp. 25–42. *
Fatimah Tobing Rony Fāṭima bint Muḥammad ( ar, فَاطِمَة ٱبْنَت مُحَمَّد}, 605/15–632 CE), commonly known as Fāṭima al-Zahrāʾ (), was the daughter of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his wife Khadija. Fatima's husband was Ali, t ...
, ''The Third Eye: Race, Cinema and Ethnographic Spectacle''. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 ...
, 1996. . * Georges Sadoul, ''Histoire Générale du Cinéma''. Vol. 1, ''L'Invention du Cinéma 1832–1897''. Paris: Denöel, 1977, pp. 73–110. *
Pierre Sorlin Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French language, French form of the name Peter (given name), Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via ...
, ''Sociologie du Cinéma'', Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1977, pp. 7–74. * Charles Warren, "Introduction, with a Brief History of Nonfiction Film," in ''Beyond Document. Essays on Nonfiction Film'', ed. Charles Warren. Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, 1996, pp. 1–22. * Ismail Xavier, "Cinema: Revelação e Engano", in ''O Olhar'' , ed. Adauto Novaes. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1993, pp. 367–384.


References

{{Authority control Film genres Investigative journalism Types of journalism Television genres